766 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E, 



from Quebec, aud Ontario from the West ; from Winnipeg to tHe Rocky Moun-» 

 tains was the home of a few Indiana ; three ranges of mountains shut in 

 British Columbia. North of the ' Height of Land ' in Ontario and Quebec all was 

 wilderness. Canada was length without breadth, and even the length was not 

 continuous. 



The progress of the country has consisted not so much in any change of climate 

 or of geographic conditions as in (1) the spread of knowledge as to what the con- 

 ditions really are ; ("2) with the growth of knowledge tbe growth of popular confi- 

 dence ; (3) the conquering of such conditions as were unfavourable. Man is to-day 

 the ruler, not the slave, of geographic conditions. He is no longer forced to follow 

 the rivers; settlement no longer creeps from poinc to point. The railway goes 

 hundreds of miles in advance of settlement, and everywhere finds laud where 

 men may live aud prosper. The now transcontinental railways pass through the 

 province of Alberta more than 300 miles north of the American frontier, and 

 already settlement has extended north of the railways. In Ontario and Quebec, 

 north of the Height of Land, great tracts are being opened up by new railways, 

 and are beino- found rich not only in minerals and in timber, but also in arable 

 land. A study of railways is to-day more important tli 'n a study of rivers. 



With this widening of habitable territory goes au increase in political and 

 economic unity ; that which was at first only a paper federation is being welded 

 together. 



At the heart of this network of railways lies Winnipeg, the central city of 

 Canada. The railway map of Canada is in shape not unlike a wasp, with its 

 waist at Winnipeg. Perhaps the greatest danger to which Canada is exposed is 

 that the waist may be too small. A railway running north of Lake Winnipeg 

 should be one of the next links forged in the building together of Canada. 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Netv Instruments /or Travellers and Surveyors. 

 By E. A.'Reeves, F.R.A.S. 



This paper gave a brief description of three instruments recently designed 

 by the author for the use of travellers and surveyors : — • 



1. The Distance -finder Alidade for Plane Tabling. — This consists of an 

 aluminium ruler 2i feet long, at each end of which is fitted a small telescope 

 placed at right angles to the ruler. One telescope has a vertical and horizontal 

 wire only fitted in the diaphragm, while the other, in addition to these, has a 

 movable micrometer wire and drum. In taking a distance the plane-table with 

 the alidade ^ is levelled, and then the telescope with the simple cross wire only is 

 sio^hted on to a definite point of an object of which the distance is required, after 

 which the surveyor passes to the other telescope, and, covering the same point 

 of the object with the movable micrometer wire, reads off the divisions recorded 

 on the micrometer. To eliminate errors in parallelism, the measurement is 

 repeated with the alidade and telescopes reversed, and the mean of the divisions 

 noted. With this mean a scale on the alidade ruler is entered and the corre- 

 sponding distance in feet read off. A 2^-foot instrument will give direct distance 

 up to about 1,000 feet with fair accttracy ; by repeating the observations and 

 with the distance so obtained, by a simple system of similar triangles, distances • 

 eii^ht or ten times as far can be measured without altering the position of the 

 plane-table. The whole operation is very rapid, and the great advantage of the 

 instrument is that it enables a surveyor to fill in a considerable amount of detail 

 without moving his board, and that he can obtain distances to points which he may 

 be unable to reach. The telescopes can be taken oft' the ruler, and one of them is 



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